Published by Vintage, 2015, 260 pages. Lost children: children without an anchor to steady them, to keep them safe. The main characters in this book are adrift and just about manage to survive. It is the 1950s. The book centres around Monica, a young English woman, the daughter of a schoolteacher. She gives up her …
Category: The reading challenge
Time Shelter: Georgi Gospodinov
Translated from Bulgarian by Angela RodelPublished by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2023, 304 pages. Original version published in 2020. What if there was a way to turn back the clock and live in the past? A geriatric psychiatrist called Gaustine, living in Zurich, believes that patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s can be helped by going into …
The Gurkha’s Daughter: Prajwal Parajuly
Published by Quercus, 2013, 296 pages. A maid with a cleft lip dreams about going to India, a daughter tries to understand her father’s problems, a young woman chooses the wrong husband, and a young man gets so worked up about relatives visiting his tiny house that he ends up upsetting everyone around him. These …
No Gods Live Here: Conceição Lima
Translated from Portuguese by Shook.Published by Phoneme Media and Deep Vellum, 2024, 255 pages. The original versions of the books from which the poems are taken were published in 2004, 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2024. “The dead ask:Why do roots sprout from our feet? ...What was this kingdom that we planted?”—From Plantation “The enigma is some …
Bitter Grounds: Sandra Benítez
Published by Picador, 1997, 444 pages. “You say, but for the golden hope of coffeefew men would get ahead.I say, when the people harvest,all they reap is bitter grounds.” Coffee plantations are the centre of the lives of two families: one, that of peasants who work picking coffee, and the other, the plantation owners. The …
The Last Day: Jaroslavas Melnikas
Translated from Lithuanian by Marija MarcinkutePublished by Noir Press, 2018, 175 pages. Original version published in 2018. The Last Day is a book of absurdist short stories by a Lithuanian writer. The protagonists, mainly men (with one exception), are victims of circumstance, caught up in strange situations that they cannot control. In the title story, …
The Cemetery of Untold Stories: Julia Alvarez
Published by Charco Press, 2024, 265 pages. “As usual, she stops at El Barón’s tomb, to pay her respects, making the sign of the cross, then laying her fingers on the glass. The touch sets the flakes flying. A voice commences recounting its stories, other voices join in, more and more, as if blown by …
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No One Prayed Over Their Graves: Khaled Khalifa
Translated from Arabic by Leri Price.Published by Faber, 2023, 404 pages. Original version published in 2019. January 1907. A flood wipes out the village of Hosh Hanna, near Aleppo, leaving only two survivors. At the time, Hanna Gregoros—who had built this village—is away with his friend Zakariya Bayazidi. They return home to total devastation: Hanna’s …
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The Eighth Life (for Brilka): Nino Haratischvili
Translated from German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.Published by Scribe, 2019, 934 pages. Original version published in 2014. “And I’m afraid of these stories. These stories that constantly run in parallel, chaotically; that appear in the foreground, conceal themselves, interrupt one another. Because they connect and break through each other, they betray and mislead, …
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The Fury and Cries of Women: Angèle Rawiri
Translated from French by Sara HanaburghPublished by University of Virginia Press, 2014, 223 pages. Original version published in 1989. This book by Angèle Rawiri, considered the first novelist from Gabon, is about the position of women in a society that has modernized without ridding itself of traditional roles. Emilienne, a woman in a fictional African …
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